The cost of transferring ownership of financial assets is treated as current expenditure while that for non-financial assets is treated as capital expenditure. The initial question was whether costs of ownership transfer on non-financial assets should continue to be treated as capital expenditure or be treated as current expenditure. The review was expanded to cover the treatment of costs of ownership transfer on disposal of an asset, including terminal costs, and the period over which costs of ownership transfer should be written off via consumption of fixed capital.

AEG recommendations

Number of AEG recommendations for selected issue:

2

Corresponding meeting

Date posted

Recommendation

December 2004

1/11/2005

The AEG agreed costs of ownership transfer on disposal of an asset should be written off over the period the asset is held.
Installation and de-installation costs should be included in costs of ownership transfer if separately invoiced, and in the purchaser`s price of the asset otherwise.
Terminal costs should be recorded as capital formation when they occur but the whole cost should be written off as consumption of fixed capital over the life of the asset, analogous to costs of ownership transfer on disposal.
When this recommendation on terminal costs cannot be followed for lack of adequate data, these costs should still be recorded as GFCF but written off as CFC in the year of acquisition.

February 2004

5/28/2004

It was recommended to preserve the link in the 1993 SNA between the value of an asset to an
enterprise and the value of the services to be
rendered by the asset over the length of time it is held. This implies maintaining COT as capital formation. However, the AEG considered that rather than depreciate the COT over the lifetime of the underlying asset as recommended by the current SNA, the cost of ownership transfer should be written off over the period during which the acquirer expects to hold the asset. If the expectation is met, this means that the COT will be entirely depreciated when the asset is resold, thus resolving the issue raised of overestimating net operating surplus.